


ever since you went away

by grantairrible



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff and Angst, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, Soft Bro Bahorel, aromantic jehan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 10:03:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6653443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grantairrible/pseuds/grantairrible
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s straight, after all, and so he throws himself into fights and crass language as if he can forget that this is all a performance, that this is the person everyone expects him to be, all while he aches for something else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ever since you went away

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Raised by Wolves' by Voxtrot.  
> I'm going to make soft bro Bahorel a thing if I die trying okay.

They grapple with each other as they fuck - neither has a particular preference for topping, but for the implications of _being fucked by a dude_ , so they fight. Bahorel is much bigger, but he has to put in a token effort, even as he lets Feuilly win, gasping as slick fingers enter him.

 

He’s straight, after all, and so he throws himself into fights and crass language as if he can forget that this is all a performance, that this is the person everyone expects him to be, all while he aches for something else.

 

It’s too close to love, in the moments after, when they lie side-by-side catching their breath, the room dark so they don’t have to think about who they just slept with. It’s just sex, it’s just two friends doing each other a favour, a release of pent-up energy and frustration.

 

Bahorel wants to keep Feuilly inside of him forever, to hold him close and never let go, but that’s not who he is, or not who he’s meant to be, and he doesn’t know why he’s holding up this pretence anymore. His friends wouldn’t care - he and Feuilly are the only ‘straight’ ones, the bros, the ones that are okay with having gay friends, but wouldn’t go for it themselves. Except Bahorel wants this to be more than it is, and it isn’t fair to Feuilly, and he’s not at ease enough with himself to not feel a little uncomfortable with falling in love with one of his best friends.

 

“I can’t do this anymore,” Bahorel says one night, cracking the previously hazy, blissful silence. Feuilly doesn’t say anything as he leaves. It’s freedom, and it’s defeat.

 

Bahorel comes out to Les Amis a month later, after long weeks of panicking and researching and far more introspection than he thought he’d go for. Along with the tentatively labelled pansexuality comes a rejection of masculinity, and he bakes and wears soft things and lets himself have all the bubble baths he’s secretly wanted. He grows his hair long and gets a dog and allows himself to love, and it’s wonderful and awful, because he still aches for Feuilly, who he’s barely spoken to since he left.

 

He takes up boxing again, not because he thinks that other people expect him to do it, but because he actually enjoys it. Grantaire welcomes him back, and they start a tradition of getting frozen yoghurt after, and Bahorel casts his eyes away when Enjolras comes to pick up Grantaire, wishing that someone - not anyone, just a certain someone - would kiss him like that. In fact, all of his friends are pairing off at an alarming pace, and apart from Feuilly, Jehan is the only other who’s single, and that’s because they’re aromantic. (Bahorel can still remember the day when Jehan had announced that they were only romantic with a capital ‘R’, and Enjolras had freaked out with jealousy since he had thought they were dating Grantaire. He wishes someone would love him in the bright, burning way that Enjolras loves Grantaire.)

 

Jehan is lithe and beautiful and offers their bed with a lyrical phrase, but Bahorel can only think of one person he wants to sleep with, and he can only remember the last time he slept with someone as a ‘friend’. He declines, and Jehan makes them both hot chocolate, and it’s not what Bahorel needs, but it is exactly what he needs, too. He didn’t realise how much the construction of his identity came between him and his friends before. It is so much easier like this, Jehan’s fingers stroking through his hair, marathoning _Sailor Moon_ and not having to pretend he doesn’t love it. Jehan puts Bahorel’s hair up in twinned buns, and Bahorel proudly wears the style until it falls out.

 

Feuilly still stays away, and Bahorel writes apologies in his head at night. He doesn’t think that Feuilly is angry at him for his sexuality, precisely, but he can understand Feuilly’s sense of betrayal. He feels betrayed himself when he wakes up gasping after dreaming of Feuilly’s body against and above his.

 

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I’m sorry. It hurts.”

“I’m sorry too.”

Feuilly leaves without another word, his strained smile lingering in Bahorel’s mind.

 

_I love you. I think,_ Bahorel writes, _I have always loved you. I just love myself as well now. It doesn’t mean I miss you any less. I don’t know if I could have loved you as you deserved if I hadn’t accepted this part of me._

He doesn’t send the letter.

 

Feuilly catches Bahorel staring, and pushes him against the rough bricks of the laneway after the meeting. He kisses him, and then draws back, apologising.

“You can’t leave me, and then look at me like that. It’s not fair.”

Bahorel starts to think he made a mistake in not explaining things before he left that night, months ago now, but Feuilly is already gone.

 

_Feuilly : _ I don’t feel like I know you any more. I miss you.

_Bahorel : _ Are you drunk? Do you want me to pick you up?

He doesn’t get a response.

 

“Just talk to him.”

Bahorel punches the mitts Grantaire’s holding. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t think around him.”

“Oh.” Grantaire lowers his hands, and barely misses getting punched by Bahorel. “Dude, what the fuck? Also, how long have you been in love with him?”

Bahorel groans. “As long as I’ve known him, I think.”

“Dude. Buddy. _Bro._ You’ve got to tell him that.”

Bahorel ignores the advice, and fixates on the fact that despite how much he’s changed, he’s still someone's _bro_. He wishes he’d done all of this years ago. Maybe it’s time to talk to Feuilly, while he’s still confident.

 

“I love you, you know.”

Feuilly’s retreating figure freezes. His shoulders slump, and he turns around. “I didn’t know for sure, but I hoped.”

“Then why have you been avoiding me?”

“You’re the one who left.”

“Oh.” It seems so simple, when Feuilly puts it like that. “I thought you hated me. That I’d used you, or had ulterior motives, or something like that.”

“No. Never. I tried to hate you, but you make it so hard.”

“I’m sorry.”

Feuilly smiles. “I accept your apology. And I’m sorry too, for what it’s worth.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you back, you idiot.”

“Oh.” Bahorel can’t even think. Feuilly’s always had this effect on him. “Fuck, I _am_ an idiot.”

“You are, a little, but I think you needed this time. Or some of it. I’ve missed you, but seeing you happy has made me happy, in a more removed sense. I was still angry at you for leaving, though.”

“I really am sorry.”

Feuilly’s smile widens, his eyes scrunching up at the corners. He’s so beautiful it makes Bahorel’s heart hurt. How could he have ever thought loving him could be a bad thing? “You can make it up to me, if you’d like.”

“Yeah?”

“Dinner. The two of us. We can go back to my place after.”

“You’re expecting me to put out on the first date?”

“You left me without a good lay for months, you’d better make that up to me.”

“If I must _._ ” Bahorel sighs, as if greatly put upon, but he can’t hide his grin as Feuilly pulls him into a kiss. “I love you.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever tire of hearing that.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've had the capital R romantic/jealous Enjolras idea in my head ever since someone described Jehan as being only Romantic, and it randomly decided to slot itself into this fic. I might write it as its own fic one day because I'm a sucker for pining/jealous Enjolras.


End file.
